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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Music and writing

Getting back to writing more frequently has me looking for ways to keep the flow going once it starts. One thing that I used to do is listen to music, although sometimes it can be a distraction when you're trying to think very deeply or creatively about a subject.
So I've started listening to music again and now I'm getting hung up on the words in the songs. This is especially an issue if the music is loud, then the words seem to just drive right through any train of thought I've got going. My solution usually is to turn it down and try to fade it out to just above any background noise. It's hard to believe that years ago I would sit in bars or punk rock coffee shops and nod my head to the music and still create (somewhat) intelligible writing. I'm sure my former professors would have a couple of comments about that last statement though.
On the plus side, music has been incredibly powerful for helping me establish mood. In the story that I'm working on now there is an archetypal sort of baddy, someone who just exudes power and evil. While writing his sections, I've found it helpful to use darker movie soundtracks... Bram Stoker's Dracula, Batman Returns, Resident Evil... all very cinematic orchestral pieces that are striking, resonant and haunting at times. In fact, Pandora has been a great boon for custom making these lists for me so I don't have to sort through and assemble it myself.
There's another character in my story that is a Florida cracker, so I like to play more bluesy, guitar and voice type of songs while writing his parts. I want to incorporate that Delta blues, swamp vibe that itself came out of the people living in the nature of the Louisiana and Mississippi area, which in some ways is very similar to the parts of Florida that he came from.
Do you use music in your writing routine? Do you employ it more as "white noise" to fill the silence or do you use it in other ways?